Friday, January 27, 2017

A poem by Gary G Pelow, Unhinged

I share a house with three other men, there are four of us in total in this chaotic house.
My own paranoia and symptoms of Schizophrenia and psychosis comes and goes, it fluctuates wildly.
I have been in many horrific places that I was living at, for example, a flea bag hotel called the Cadillac Hotel.
A place occupied by hookers, drug addicts, drug users, thieves and the severely mentally ill who are not in treatment
This shit hole was also infested with bed bugs, mice, scabies mites and cockroaches. That place is filled with disease, of both body and mind.
It is hard to deal with reality when the people I am living with are becoming less connected to reality themselves.
I am a constant nervous wreck, I am always in a state of alarm and panic over my own physical safety.
My stomach is constantly turning with nausea and acid that often results in severe intractable vomiting.
I suppose I should just be grateful that I have a place to live in the middle of the cold of January, and I am grateful.
I am crashing and struggling to get through each day, I move forward blindly through the chaos not knowing where I will end up.
Me and one of my roommates a couple of mornings ago, very early, around five AM, got into an argument that escalated very quickly from yelling and screaming to violence where I shoved him back as he rushed me to defend myself and he fell over a kitchen chair, then he got up, grabbed a broom and started hitting me with the handle, he left visible bruises on my forearms as I tried to block the broom handle as I was being attacked with it.
I called the police, they came, they asked some questions, and left without arresting my assailant even though I told them directly I wanted to press charges and they, the police, replied to me: "be a fucking man!".
My world is becoming more and more unhinged, like a train speeding off its tracks.
I am both possessed by and surrounded by psychosis, my own and that of my roommates.
I am tired of living in fear and tired of the police ignoring the constant danger I live in.
The police of this cold city were worse than useless when they came over to the house, I expected justice and protection of my rights and bodily safety from the police and instead received insults and derision from them, the police.
I have never trusted these pigs in law, they have failed me at every turn, they may not have caused violence against me, but they did stand there passively letting it happen.